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At last, the conference is over, and for the first time in almost four years, I feel sad to leave this group! I really enjoyed myself this conference, and felt much more relaxed than I have in the past. Although I am so ridiculously tired that I almost fell asleep during this morning's session! I did have a nice relaxing afternoon though, with one short side trip out to the Old Town to get a marionette as a souvenir. I'm looking forward to hanging it up!
But the highlight of the day was certainly the Gala Dinner, and I'm not just saying that because I got to dress up in a fabulous dress! We managed to get everybody on the buses and I took the last bus up to Prague Castle. We bumped over cobbled stones, and I feared the bus would tip over a couple of times, but finally, we turned a corner and the vista of Prague below us unfolded. We all drew in a breath at the site, and the similarly impressive Prague Castle itself. The Castle is where Czech kings, Holy Roman Emperors, and presidents of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic have had their offices. Entering
the Castle, we passed by two armed guards, a la Buckingham Palace and found ourselves in a large courtyard. Our hostess pointed out the President's quarters, which we would not be seeing that evening (it *was* a possibility, right up until they announced they wanted to charge us $200 a person!). We ascended a set of steps and followed a winding staircase up into the hallway where the rest of the group was gathered for a welcome drink. The hallway was so long, but our group managed to fill it up, and their lively chatter floated around us. After chatting for a little while about the state of law firms in Europe and around the world, we were escorted into Rudolph's Gallery, one of two large halls in the castle which was built in the 16th century to exhibit the collection of Emperor Rudolph the II. The gallery was modified in the 19th century and decorated with pseudo-Renaissance reliefs and mirrors. It was breathtakingly impressive - a massive hall, with sweeping ceilings awash in gold and light. Everyone was impressed and awed by their surroundings.
We were treated to some music by a period band as we were seated,
and it seemed as though everyone was almost afraid to sit down because they stood for a while until a couple of people began to sit down. I had a very lovely table, and enjoyed my dinner companions very much and it seemed that everyone was enjoying the company of their table-mates. We started with the home made duck liver terrine foie gras with green apples and forest fruit chutney. I can honestly say that I didn't see any green apples, but I did have some of the foie gras. It's not my favorite, so I can only have a little before it becomes much too rich. Fortunately, there seemed to be a lot of bread around, and every time someone ate a piece, they were right there to replace it with another, different piece of bread. It bordered on the ridiculous, because some people at my table had five or six pieces of bread! Following the first course, the real entertainment started. We had an opera show, which I was anticipating would be rather uncomfortable as this group is not all opera buffs. A man came out in a loose white shirt, tucked into black tight capri pants, with tall white stocking socks and these silver shoes. It was hard to take him seriously as he belted out a song that we decided was in Italian, though we couldn't really tell. We all clapped and thought that was the end of it, but next came out the soprano, also dressed in period costume. She was a little more interactive with the crowd, singing to one of our delegates and making him get up to walk around with her and cuddle with her - it was so funny, my cheeks hurt from laughing! We then thought that THAT was the end, but it turned out that there were three more acts to go, all fairly amusing and entertaining. It was a good surprise, though I assured the delegates at my table that we generally don't go for opera performances at ILN meetings!
The second course of our dinner was fresh spinach cream soup with mushrooms - I did eat and enjoy it, but I ate around the mushrooms. The main course was intended to be lamb chops, but that's not what I ended up having...one of our companions has recently started a raw food diet, and so could not eat anything cooked or processed (the list of what she can eat can fit on one small piece of paper - I know because I've seen it). Despite my instructing the events planners of this, they had her down as vegan, and provided her with a plate of vegetable ravioli, which of course, she couldn't eat. So my dad gave them to me, and my table hailed me as the good sport of the night for eating someone else's dinner that they didn't want. They were good though, and the mixture of vegetables was such that I couldn't *really* taste what I was eating! Following dinner, we had a presentation to a retiring member, followed by a gift presentation to our host firm. As dessert was served, they announced that dancing would follow - nobody got up! So I was a bit concerned that there would be no dancing at all. But as we began to eat our dessert (date toffee with caramel creme fraiche - not as good as last nights!) some good songs were being played and some people started to boogie. The semi-receiving line began as well, as people came to my table to say thanks and goodbye before they left. Eventually, I ended up alone at my table, so one of the delegates took pity on me and came over to chat. We saw some of the group dancing, and shortly another delegate came by to pull me out on the dance floor. We had a great time dancing and laughing with some of my friends in the group, and I managed to get in four dances with two of the delegates. It was great fun and a fabulous way to end the conference with a bang. Now, I am off to get two hours of sleep before getting up for our crazy early flight tomorrow, so that I hopefully make it home in time to see my sister graduate! I think I'll definitely be back to Prague though!!
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